One reason that is hard for most of us to believe is that each year in the United States alone Americans collectively throw away over 2.
5 billion pounds of textiles into our landfills, that is nearly 10 lbs of clothing per American.
Most of the textiles only lived a short life and could have been easily repaired or cleaned if there was any damage to begin with.
The problem however is not necessarily where the product ends up at the end of its cycle as much as where it began in the first place.
When it comes to the clothing and textiles industry sweatshops and child labor continues to be an ongoing problem in the manufacturing of these items in particular.
Corporate greed and the global competition to produce goods at the lowest possible price are the main reasons for the existence of sweatshops.
Consumers in the United States tend to have an unsatisfying appetite for passing trends including new clothing and accessories.
According to Luz Claudio at EHP (Environmental health Perspective) "Fast Fashion provides the marketplace with affordable apparel aimed mostly at young women.
Fueling the demand are fashion magazines that help create the desire for new "must-haves" for each season.
"Girls especially are insatiable when it comes to fashion.
They have to have the latest thing, always.
And since it is cheap, you buy more of it.
" While boys and girls are trying to keep up with the latest fashion at the cheapest price, corporations have found that it is much more cost-effective to subcontract their manufacturing to suppliers who produce goods cheaply by minimizing their workers salaries and benefits.
They are also commonly neglecting the standards of factory and dormitory upkeep while demanding high levels of productivity.
To meet their goals they require long hours from their workers without any compensation.
Because developing countries desperately need foreign investment they are often competing with one another to produce their goods more and more cheaply, allowing US corporations to dictate their purchase price.
As reported by the business journal Fast Company in December 2003, Walmart (the country's largest retailer) actually implements a corporate policy of requiring its vendors to continually seek ever-lower prices for its products.
"Walmart has a clear policy for suppliers," writes Fast Company's Charles Fishman.
"On basic products that don't change, the price Walmart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year.
" As retailers compete with one another by seeking lowest-cost workers, they put pressure on suppliers to keep their costs down, and they encourage consumers to buy more at "discount" prices.
This market for cheap goods in return squeezes factory owners to pinch even more.
The result is factories forcing overtime, low wages for their workers, plus punishments and fines for slow work and mistakes.
Not to mention worker intimidation, child labor, and many other abuses.
What you can do to make a difference.
As of yet there doesn't appear to be any true form of a "sweatshop-free" label that exists.
Some independent companies or monitors if you will, follow the supply chains of companies that pay a fee for their service in an attempt to help facilitate follow-up correction programs for factories found to be in violation of labor standards.
Often conditions can change rapidly at factories; because of this many of these monitors do not go on record endorsing particular companies or factories.
For some select industries, however, dedication to recycling efforts has resulted in useful recycled/vintage labeling for a handful of products.
For example, some companies combat the existence of child labor in the apparel industry by recycling or re-purposing old or used products to re-issue back into the fashion industry.
Labeling specific items with a Vintage Tag, letting consumers know that the item is 100% recycled, eco-friendly and child-labor-free.
By purchasing products that are recycled, fairly traded, cooperatively produced, or produced in a unionized factory, you can help end sweatshop and forced child labor.
Many other well-respected organizations have called boycotts to put an end to unfair labor practices, animal testing, dangerous pesticide use, and other abuses of people and resources.
Whether you're protesting treatment of workers at a national retail chain or mobilizing against the construction of a waste dump in your community, a boycott can help you get the attention of your community and the company you are targeting.
Finding ways to recycle your own clothing as well as providing resources for others to do the same may be perhaps the easiest and effective ways to making a difference.
Recovering old textiles and recycling them provide both environmental and economical benefits.
First off recycling your textiles reduces the need for landfill space.
Currently textiles present particular problems in a landfill because synthetic (man-made fibers) products do not decompose, while woolen garments do decompose and produce methane, which contributes to global warming.
Recycling your textiles also reduces the pressure of virgin resources, which results in less pollution and energy savings and fibers do not have to be transported from abroad.
This helps avoid many of the polluting and energy intensive processes needed to make textiles from virgin materials including savings on energy consumption when processing as items do not need to be re-dyed or sourced.
Less effluent, as unlike raw wool, it does not need to be washed using large volumes of water.
Not to mention it reduces the need for child labor and sweat shops around the globe.
Collection Methods Currently the consumer has the option of donating textiles to clothing banks, or taking them directly to a charity chop or clothing drive.
The Salvation Army is the largest operator of textile banks in the US.
On average, each of these banks is estimated to collect about six tons of textiles per year.
Combined with door-to-door collections, The Salvation Army's textile recycling operations account for the processing of in excess of 17,000 tons of clothing a year.
Clothes are given to the homeless, sold in charity shops or sold in developing countries in Africa, the Indian sub-continent and parts of Eastern Europe.
Nearly 70% of items put into clothing banks are reused as clothing, and any un-wearable items are sold to merchants to be recycled and used as factory wiping cloths.
Almost all of the collected textiles from donation centers or clothing recycle bins are sorted and graded at a Rag House by skilled workers who are able to recognize the large variety of fiber types resulting from the introduction of synthetics and blended fiber fabrics.
Once these items are sorted they are sent off to different destinations.
Post industrial waste is often reprocessed in-house.
Clippings from garment manufacture are also used by fiber reclaimers to make into garments, felt and blankets.
Some selected items will be sold to the "Vintage Wholesale Market" and reused by designers fashioning garments and bags from recovered items.
Vintage Wholesale Companies like DF Vintage grade the textiles even more to produce mixes that will sell in Vintage Shops in the US, Japan and Europe, however this is a very small sector within the overall destinations of textiles.
What You Can Do:
- Take your used clothing to a donation center.
You can also contact your local recycling authority officer if there are no donation centers in your area and ask why; they may collect textiles through other means.
If that does not work you can take used clothing to local charity shops - Give your old clothes/shoes/curtains/handbags etc.
to jumble sales or hand them down to a younger brother, sister or friend.
Remember to tie shoes together: part of the 6% of textiles which is wastage for merchants are single shoes. - Buy second-hand clothes - you can often find one of a kind pieces.
Remember if is purchased from a charity shop, it will also benefit a charity. - Don't just purchase trendy items.
Buy things you are likely to wear a long time - a dedicated consumer or follower of fashion can also be somewhat ecological if items are chosen carefully. - Look for recycled content in the garments you buy.
This should be on the label, though at present there is no conventional marking scheme and some companies do not always advertise the recycled content.